Romulus Linney, a prolific playwright whose work ranged from stories set in Appalachia to the Nuremberg trials, has died in New York. He was 80.

NEW YORK (AP)  Romulus Linney, a prolific playwright whose work ranged from stories set in Appalachia to the Nuremberg trials, has died in New York. He was 80.

Linney's wife Laura Callanan said the playwright died Saturday at his home in Germantown, N.Y., north of Poughkeepsie. The cause was lung cancer.

Linney, father of actress Laura Linney, wrote more than 30 plays that covered a number of subjects. Some of his works were set in Appalachia, which he was familiar with through his youth growing up in the South. Others were historical dramas, some looking at moments in time like the Nuremberg trials or the Vietnam war and others taken from the lives of public figures like the poet Lord Byron or Frederick II, a king of Prussia.

Linney also had the ability to write the voice of women particularly well, Callanan said.

"When I first saw his plays as a student years ago, walking in you wouldn't know if the playwright was a man or woman," she told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Most of Linney's work appeared in regional theater and off-Broadway, with one play appearing in a Broadway theater.

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